Tuesday, September 25, 2007

speechless...

Incident 1:

Met a neighbor. Her first greeting to me, a stranger, was ‘ Are you from China or --- (my present residential country)’
‘None of the above. I’m from ----’ My reply.
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m just friendly. You know, there are people of many different nationalities here now. Maybe you should travel overseas more to learn this… blah blah blah (continue for about 5 minutes….)’

Incident 2:

Our French teacher shared that in history, New Orlene was sold by Napoleon to USA for a sum of money and feels that it is a pity (jokingly).
Immediately we had a protest from our super patriotic American, ‘ Don’t ever talk bad about American ! blah blah blah...’.
But… He was talking about Napoleon !!
And this beautiful lady whose rich husband is a French, would never degrade herself by associating with fellow classmates even of the same ethnic as hers.

Incident 3:

We had the pleasure of an economist to teach basic economics to my fellow colleagues who lacked such background training.
A casual remark blurted out from this economist, ‘It’s simply an inescapable trend. The employment of -------people is so cheap and good,’
Room of laughter. The new associate from the country mentioned, a recently graduated scholar, kept silent.
Interestingly, all of our forefathers, who in fact immigrated from the same mentioned country just 2-3 generations ago, were also ‘cheap and good labors’ in the eyes of the British.


Hopefully I will get much less of such experience in my future MBA community.

Services

The service at Dome Café at Alliance Francaise is impressive.

Example 1:

I arrived earlier than usual to revise for my first French test. The café was not ready for business yet but the kind waiter let me order a cappuccino anyway. My hot cappuccino was served ten minutes later, on the house ! The waiter even apologized for making me wait even though I was the one troubling him…I insisted on paying but eventually accepted his generosity.

Normal practice in this city:

Will be told to return later by a staff because the official business hour has yet to begin. Attitude of the staff varies at different places.


Example 2:

The filling of the chicken pie was cold obviously because of insufficient heating-up. The waiter took back the partially eaten pie, and served me a new one with additional salad.

Normal practice in this city:

Waiter may apologize, sincerely or not. Serve the re-heated chicken pie later.


My classmates, who come from different parts of the world, often lament the service standard here. There is room for improvement for sure. Here’s my attempt, after some mid-night chit-chatting and discussions with my night-owl friends, to explain such general situation in the country. Of course, it is possible to find great services here, but they usually demand a higher outflow of thy purse.

Perhaps this little illustration of a local phenomenon will help.

Long queues are generally perceived as a direct result of a demand for highly appealing product or service with limited supply. Thus, to avoid disappointment, some people develop the instinct to join the queue whenever there is one, or follow the majority to test the truth. It’s a common scene even at the key commercial district, where people typically have only an hour to grab lunch at those super-crowded eateries.

Yours truly here, sometimes unable to suppress curiosity, will ask those people in the queue if they know the prize for their suffering. Voila ! many of them have no idea at all. It’s akin to Forrest Gum’s box of chocolate, you never know what surprise awaits you! It might be a bottle of mineral water so promptly quenches one’s thirst after 45 minutes of queuing. Sometimes, it is a complimentary bottle of travel size shampoo, for one to look forward to the next trip.
Perhaps hours of queuing under the scorching tropical sun and in such high humidity is a great way to train one’s patience, and can produce similar effects of practicing calligraphy to calm one’s senses.

Imagine some of the service industry practices are brought here. Free food if you are not satisfied. Total refund, no question asked, within 30 days of purchase if you are unhappy with your purchase, never mind if it has been used once or twice. Complimentary free item if the service is not unsatisfactory.

In the name of exercising the right to receive great services, consumers can do many things… I can imagine queues and queues of people…

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

INSEAD Interview

Have completed the interview requirement. It's now back to the waiting game, and I should duely refocus back to my preparation work for other B-Schools, my work and French lessons.

Realize that I may need to force myself to do something I really drag to - driving. It has not been abolutely necessary but it may well be for survivalship in the near future. I need to tune my mind to believe that it can be enjoyable from now on... believe ...believe...

:)

Columbia Information Session

Attended the information session sponsored by Citigroup, which representatives also used the opportunity to briefly introduce their Management Associate (ie, management trainee)programme.

The alumni spoke a lot more enthusiastically about the school. Whether the alumni feel strongly about the benefits they have derived from the MBA programme, during and after the 2-year course, is an important consideration. It helps that the admission office representative gave useful information otherwise not available online too.

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Art of Capturing Attention

The Q&A session is always most informative if not entertaining.

When hundreds of competitors gather at a seminar or presentation, the challenge is to create an impression to the key decision makers, whose opinion, no matter how subjective they are, could influence our prospects for the next few years.

The problem is, how to make a smart impression by asking the right and intelligent question, instead of appearing foolish/immature/arrogant (due to ignorance) by asking those 'oh-goodness-could-you-please-do-you-due-research-and-exercise-your-common-sense' questions, maybe sometimes for the sake of voicing yourself?

As witnessed at those seminars when speakers are renowned national and corporate leaders, so as at sessions held by ad-coms.

Of course, at the other end, there is a proposition that simply by voicing yourself and making your presence felt, a person would have marketed himself/herself better than a quieter thinker, and hence can obtain more opportunities and thereby achieve more success.

It's a sophisticated art to be further polished at MBA school.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Chicago Business School Information Session

Attended Chicago Business School's information session.

The core content included mainly typical ivy-league B-School marketing speech. After months of researching on MBA schools, I do not find the first 1 h 30 minute of presentation particularly informative. The sharing by alumni, 5 out of 6 of them are here for short-term company training and are based in other key financial centres, provide certainly more insights since they are the ones having real personal experiences as students as well as alumni.

Some of my takeaways from the session.

- Be prepared to be always intellectually challenged, sometimes aggressively, during class discussions and lectures.
- Offers very flexible programme, with 11 concentrations and various courses offered by other Chicago schools to choose from.
- 50% case studies, inclusive of some case studies written by Harvard; 50% lectures and other traditional teaching methods to provide a strong foundation of business fundamentals.
- Chicago is one of the best business idea think-tank as evidenced by the many prestigious awards received by their faculty.
- about 50% of graduates are employed in financial sector.
- Have 4 campuses - Full time MBA course : at 2 campuses in Chicago, Executive programmes : at the London and Singapore campuses.
- Chicago city offers a wide array of fantastic activities and entertainment.

- Cost - approximately US$140,000- $150,000 for an average lifestyle.
- USA work visa issue - will be a valid concern for international student

Friday, September 7, 2007

MBA Information Session in Asia

MBA Schools are coming to Asia :)

Check out these few schools which will be hosting information sessions in Asia in the coming weeks.
** The list is not exhaustive.

I have also included the specific dates for sessions in Singapore.

Chicago MBA - 10 September 2007
Columbia - 14 September 2007
Cranfield, UK - 18 September
Stanford - 02 October 2007
London Business School - 13 October 2007

Cheerios !

INSEAD Interview- still waiting

2 weeks after the interview invitation, I am still waiting for INSEAD AdCom to provide me the contact(s) of my interviewer(s). The AdCom has been very helpful and efficient in answering my queries, but seems to have some difficulty to find an available alumni who has knowledge of my current and post-MBA industry.

I presume this is due to the common long working hour for people in these two industries, especially for the alumni who hold important positions, and for working in this workaholic country. :p A recent global survey revealed that we actually clock longer working hour than those working in HongKong.... we are overtaking them ! Should we be glad for this ?

While I am eager to complete the interviews, it might be a blessing that I have more time to prepare for it/them. Having not done any formal interview in the past 4 years, I really need to practise on my interview skills and to consciously practise speaking proper and formal English (:p), which is hardly required on a daily basis here...


By the way, I have noticed a stereotype of Asian student in the MBA world... it seems that Asian student is typically perceived as excessively diligent and determined to achieve academic excellence =p. Almost every MBA student/alumni I have spoken to have advised me to enjoy the fun of socialising (ie, partying :p) and travelling, and not to spend too much time mugging at the cold cold library... oppss....

Monday, September 3, 2007

Significance of Time

One and a half month to have my destiny in the next 1 year unveiled. Year end has a totally different meaning and gives a different type of stress to me now. Counting down :)

1-2 weeks to INSEAD interviews. The school has yet to notify me the interviews' contacts. It could be a blessing in disguise that the adminstrator mixed up my present location so I could have probably a few days more to prepare for THE interviews. I have not done any formal job interview for the past few years and thus it will be important to practise more :) Did a mock interview with a current INSEAD student over last weekend. Got some useful pointers, but still have to prepare more for the actual ones. He gave a positive feedback, but he could be just kind to me.

4 more days to my first French mini test. Most of my classmates have some background knowledge in French prior to the class, either from their spouses/friends or from their living experience in French-speaking places, and for me it has been akin to trying to catch up with the Mercedes car speed with a small humble Japanese car. =P

News broken

Have broken the news to a few closer friends and colleagues about my MBA plan, which hopefully will start in January'07. Generally the response from my friends have been supportive and heartwarming, while the response from some colleagues, as expected judging from previous cases of anyone who chose to leave this organization, have been rather skeptical of my decision to study an internationally recognized MBA, to switch to another career and to relocate to a culturally different continent. The process of explaining, if I should bother to sometimes, brings more frustration and being the lazy person as I am, I really prefer to just smile and leave it.

At the end of the day, it only matters that my close friends and family understand my decisions. :)